TimeandTide

Same here. I enjoyed how the darkness mimicked the fog of war and fueled the chaos and ambiguity of the battle. Didn't once think the episode felt overly dark, and I was watching it on a seven-year old Panny plasma with a bit glare from the late-afternoon sun.

[email protected]

"Winter is Coming" - is that something brought on by the return of the Night King, or is it just the normal seasons for the North? Is winter still coming?

Tom Banjo

andicus

I think it's a pretty complex question.

First, regardless of how their seasons work, their year will still be one orbit of their star. Our seasons don't determine our year, our position in our orbit around the sun does.

I would assume their seasons work like ours, i.e. their planet is tilted, resulting in different seasons due to its position in its orbit.

However, if they're farther away, their year would be longer, but you get into the problem of the habitable zone. If they're too far away, it would be too cold for liquid water. If they're too close, it would be too hot for liquid water. But, if a star was hot enough, the orbit could be great enough that a year would take a lot longer than ours.

I think it could also get really complicated if the period of precession (i.e. the planet wobbling on its axis. Ours is 26 000 years) was short enough, and they had a highly elliptical orbit. I'm sure there could be a model that would support shorter seasons, but with a greater overall seasonal effect.

Josh-da-man

BobO'Link

The Night King is a "First Man" who originated on Westeros. The Targaryans came from Valyria in Essos. The dragon fire did not kill the Night King due to the extreme cold he radiates. It's the same with the White Walkers. The wights are simply animated bones and tissue so can burn easily.

While she might be able to use the face of a wight (what I thought might happen) there's no way for her to get the face of a White Walker as they shatter into ice fragments when killed.
I agree.
I think they're doing some quick retconning to explain something that doesn't really need explanation. It's already been established that he can be killed with Dragon Glass or Valeryan Steel. No one said it had to be in a specific body location.
That makes more sense but still doesn't connect to anything established in the show.
That's it exactly. They failed to vet the episode on standard consumer equipment and didn't take into account that the vast majority of people purchase a TV, take it home, connect it, watch stuff, and have no idea about proper calibration. They're content with how it comes or the presets offered.

Decades ago audio producers made a point to listen to records on small consumer radios as that's how the majority of people would listen to their work. It hurt the final product but made it listenable to the majority of their customers.

That these guys failed to do that one simple test is the height of arrogance and a failure to the customers. It doesn't matter that some people had no issues. What matters is that a large number of people did.

FWIW: I could see everything I felt I was meant to see and still felt it was too dark.
Same here except I never found any of it suspenseful or full of horror. It was a lame zombie movie done GoT style with a similar, and expected, Deus Ex Machina ending.

I'd rank it as the worst episode of the series. It hit all the notes it needed to hit to wrap up this story line. Hopefully they'll do better on the last 3 episodes.

Hopefully they'll see fit to address the brighness/darkness issue on the discs - but based on the comments of the "cinematographer" I doubt it will happen.

Tom Banjo

The Infidel

funkyryno

kefrank

I made it about 1:00 into that video. The brightened version looks utterly awful IMO.

funkyryno

I agree. Somewhere in the middle would be the sweet spot for me.

eXcentris

I rewatched the episode with the backlight set to 50 and it was better but still too dark. I went back and checked the rtings video, and the advice was "14 for average lit room, but 50 for HDR content". Most people woudn't know HDR requires more brightness. That said, most people probably do not have HDR capable gear.

bunkaroo

Has anyone rewatched this recently? I originally watched it on a standard 1080p display in a not totally dark room through HBO NOW on a Roku. It definitely seemed too dark in many spots.

I watched it again this week on my main display - LG OLED 4K properly calibrated in a dark room, also on a Roku from HBO NOW. I didn't having any trouble with perceived darkness this time.

While it's certainly possible my display was handling it better, I have to wonder if HBO did update this to be a little lighter.

slop101

Waiting on the final season blu-rays to re-watch the whole thing.
I really like the in-episode "guides" that fill you in on the world's details and back-stories.

Koby

I watched it on Amazon initially via my Sceptre 40" 4K and didn't have any problems seeing the episode.